Snakes Not Serpents
by Mizayo
Summary: All the lovely young Lone Wanderer wanted to do was visit some friends in Underworld, but after being taken down by some smelly guys, all she can think is, "It's Snakes, not Serpents!" -A story of how Audrey Lone and Butch DeLoria found each other... and a rivalry. Rated T for language and mild violence.
1. Chapter 1

The sun.

God, it was such a pain in the ass. Just who did it think it was, waking her up every morning? Why couldn't the nice moon stay up all the time? It would surely make sleeping a lot less difficult.

Groaning, Audrey Lone threw her arm over her eyes, lazily trying to block the sun's rays. They peaked through the large cracks in the beaten walls of her home, coming in through every bit that wasn't properly patched up. She grunted angrily when she heard the loud humming of her robot butler, hovering up the stairs, no doubt to tell her to get up already.

"Joe… man, just… _shhh_!" she grumbled out, but the humming was still getting closer. Soon, it sounded right in the doorway. There was a good, long minute before she finally rolled her head to the side and lifted her arm up slowly. The first thing she saw was the large robot, hovering halfway in the doorway, looking in on her patiently. "What?" she mumbled.

"Get my ass outta bed before noon, Joe. I got a lot of shit to do tomorrow," the recording on her voice played back. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open wide and she jumped out of bed, scrambling for her jacket.

"What time is it?" she screeched hastily, pushing past him and down the stairs of her home, leading into the main room. She hurried over to the shelf, picking up her 10mm SMG and a handful of stimpacks and ammo.

"7:30 in the morning, madam," her robot replied.

At that, she seemed to relax a bit and quite running around. She took in a deep breath and let it out. "Thanks, Joe," she used her favorite name. She didn't even remember where it came from. Maybe she just liked the name Joe. Shaking her head of the useless thoughts, she set back to work in the kitchen, shuffling through the fridge for more supplies. Then she went back upstairs and picked out a few Nuka-Colas.

She went back downstairs, setting the pack on the table and rifling through it, making sure she had everything. Ammo, check. Stimpacks, check. Colas, check. There were a few radaways, jets, psychos, and a bit of random junk strewn about the place, in case she needed it.

"May I ask where you are going?" asked the butler, hovering back in the kitchen.

She glanced over to him and smirked. "Underworld."

"Underworld, madam? The city of ghouls? Why ever would you want to go there?"

Aud sighed, swinging her pack over her shoulders and strapping the gun to her waist. "Well, Joe, I got tons of scrap metal built up, I haven't talked to Carol for Gob yet, someone mentioned a 'Charon' guy that I want to meet and, well… I've got some business with a certain ghoul. Finished a job for him, and I want the caps. So," she huffed, straitening the stuff on her back and pulling the door open. "Several reasons, really. See ya."

As she stepped into the bright sunlight, a wrinkle in her bag got caught on the door, gracelessly yanking her back towards it when she tried to walk away. "Oh, fucking hell," she muttered under her breath as she awkwardly tried to untangle the cloth of the bag from the door. Finally, it came loose, but not before it caused a scene.

Jericho had been walking by when Aud had strutted out, and when he saw her get caught, he couldn't help but laugh. As she swore and spent three minutes trying to get it loose, he had almost collapsed in laughter. Giving him the deadliest glare she could muster – and that was pretty scary – she strode on past him, heading towards Gob's Saloon.

It had been only a day since she'd last been to the bar, but she was so used to coming by to visit in the mornings, it was almost routine. Besides, she couldn't just up and leave without telling her favorite ghoul first.

When she stepped in, she was immediately greeted by the lovely, peeled-off grin of her best friend. "Morning, smoothskin," greeted Gob in his usual gravelly voice, standing behind the bar.

"Hey," she said excitedly. She swung the door behind her, making sure not to get her pack caught, and plopped down on a stool in front of the bar. "Just stopped by to say adios, amigo. I'm leaving for Underworld again. Talking to Crowley and, hopefully, Charon. Might get a cut from Snowflake too. I'm a bit raggedy…"

Gob sighed and stopped rubbing a spot on the bar. "Aud, how many times do I have to tell you? Charon is bad news. You really should just forget about him." He pauses and looks Aud in the eyes, smiling. "Snowflake still 'styling?"

Aud smirked. "Yep. He's actually pretty good considering how little practice he gets." She stands up. "And to address your earlier concern: I can handle myself, Gob. You know that. Besides, he seems like a cool guy. And with the rumors I hear, I feel like Ahzrukhal would be more of a danger." She carefully stepped out the door. "See ya later, Joe."

"Be careful, Audrey."

* * *

_Sometimes the Wastes aren't so bad_, thought Audrey as she scraped along the dry, crusty land. _Sometimes they're kind of peaceful. _

She'd been traveling the Wastes for quite a while now, almost four days. She hadn't seen much action during this trip, and it really surprised her. Most of the time, she'd stumble past quite a few raider camps, super mutant hideouts, maybe even a nest of radroaches (or whatever it's called when they're in a group, she never did know), but all she'd come across were a few stray robots and a couple of boatflies.

Though, of course, she wasn't complaining. Having it nice and partially quiet was always a good thing, especially when you're tired and injured. She'd been walking for almost a full day on an untreated ankle, and it was starting to really get to her. She'd run out of stimpacks, which is never good, but managed to salvage some random junk food to keep her going then. But it had drained a while back.

Finally, she came upon the ruined highway to DC. A flicker of hope flashed inside her when she saw the travelling merchant, and she ran up to them quickly, all the while being mindful of her ankle.

"Hello," said the merchant as she approached, a bit out of breath and awkwardly limping towards him. "Need something?"

Although she was grateful, she was known for her temper. "You fucking blind? I need a stimpack, if you don't mind," she grumbled, handing over a small bag of caps. When the merchant raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed, she grumbled and put on a very fake smile. "Please?"

The merchant sighed and took the bag, counting the contents. His eyebrows shot up at what he saw. Nodding quickly, he handed her quite a few stimpacks. "Quite a bit of currency you got there, missy. Fake?"

She shook her head absentmindedly, settling down on a ruined car and injecting the stimpack. She sighed, obviously relieved of the pain that'd been haunting her for quite some time. "Nope," she finally answered, looking back up at the merchant with newfound energy. "I do a lot of jobs, that's all. Gets to accumulating pretty quickly."

"I can see that," he mumbles, quickly pushing the bag full of caps into his pack. "Well, thanks."

She nodded at him before heading back on her way, up the small bridge and deep into the city.

* * *

This is where it got tough. Only about ten minutes into the city, she'd already downed three super mutants. Why there were so many in DC, no one knew, but there were, and it was quite the job to try and avoid them. Of course, Audrey didn't have the time – she was a busy woman – so she stomped along the road to the Washington Monument, not caring whether or not she drew more attention that way.

She knew it was a stupid move, and she didn't know why she was in such a hurry, but for some reason she just felt like she had to get there soon.

But of course, knowing her life thus far, there was something bound to go wrong at some point. So of course it came to no surprise when she was jumped by a couple raiders on her way.

Though she wasn't expecting them to be so… smelly? She couldn't quite place the smell of them, through all the rough fighting, but she had always relied heavily on her sense of smell, so it worried her when she couldn't figure it out easily. Raiders usually stank of blood and a bit of gunpowder. She knew she smelled of leather and sweat (not the sweetest of combinations, but smelling good wasn't high on her list of priorities). And other things she'd encountered during her travels always left a memory of some sort of smell to them. Usually robots were a slight twang of metal and dirt, Brotherhood of Steel soldiers were like copper, and always had this feeling of… dryness. Rivet City residents smelled like irradiated water and booze.

And raiders were blood and gunpowder. As she ducked under a dip in the street for cover, she stopped to think about it while she could. They didn't really look that much like raiders, really. They didn't have worn out old armor, they didn't have strange face paint or wild haircuts. They looked almost… orderly. Though not quite. They still had this air about them, as if they would get what they wanted, whether or not they had to kill for it. And it seemed as if they had already decided that killing was the way to get that.

After gaining some breath, she popped up from under her cover, landing quite a few good shots on one or two of the men. The next time she got up, however, her heart sank.

There were about eight more running towards their friends. Backup. And some serious ones at that. How the hell was she going to get past these eggheads? Getting an idea, she reached for her overpowered hunting rifle, but was too slow. The eight new men apparently hadn't stopped back at the 'raiders' line. They had marched right on through, as if they were built to tackle instead of shoot.

One particularly large one grabbed her by the shoulder and lifted her up into the air, and another one held up his hand to motion for the shooting to stop. Before she could do anything else, she got a whiff of their scent and it finally hit her. It was old cologne.

Then a fist collided with her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N - I just noticed how much I end a chapter with someone being knocked out and woken up in the next one. So... I changed it up a bit. To get into the action. You know.**

* * *

Panting, Aud flung her hand up against his jaw, slamming his face backwards and into the wall behind him. A loud crack filled the air at the force of the impact, and the thug slumped against the wall, sliding to the ground. No blood. Still breathing. Still alive.

But Aud was in too much of a hurry to worry about killing him. So she took a moment to breathe, then started down another hall.

_Time to recap: Aud got ambushed by some nice-smelling thugs right inside DC. They knocked her out cold. She woke up here, and immediately started bashing heads together. So... you haven't missed much._

Just who were these sons-of-bitches anyway? She'd already ruled out raiders, because, well... they smelled too nice. So what were they? They couldn't be just and ol' Wastelanders - they were way too tough, and there were too many of them. This seemed to be their hideout, or their base... it was almost like a Vault. Long, metal corridors, completely empty. An alarm was going off, though it sounded wrong, like a record player when someone's purposely slowing it down. The lights would flicker once in a while, but that seemed almost normal. Like they had always been faulty.

Another thug came around a corner and managed to catch her off guard, grabbing her quickly and pulling her against him. She struggled against him with all her strength - which, frankly, wasn't much - but he obviously was stronger than her and managed to keep her there. She stopped thrashing around at the sound of his voice in her ear. "Don't worry, honey. The boss just wants to talk with ya, that's all. That's all," he spoke with a tone most used for babies or small children.

She grunted with another attempt to free herself, to no avail. Sneering, she rasped out, "Who the hell are you people?"

The thug flung her over his shoulder with one smooth motion, and started walking the opposite way she came. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, honey. No questions. We're just going to talk to the boss, that's all. That's all."

* * *

It _was_ a vault. First thing she noticed: The place the thug took her was a vault cafeteria. She knew the look of the place - that's where the Snakes usually hung out. Vault cafeterias were all the same. This one looked quite a bit bigger - probably for a larger population - but that's about it.

The next thing she noticed was who inhabited the cafeteria. A bunch of things were huddling in a corner, playing something that looked similar to poker. Though with what, she didn't know. She had never seen a deck of cards in her life except in old posters. She'd heard there were some in Vegas, but she couldn't imagine people being from anywhere other than DC, let along across the country.

The last thing she noticed was a woman, dressed in a large black leather jacket, a dirty white shirt that showed off her quite prominent abs, and some really rough jeans. She had a large ammo belt strapped over her shoulder and weapons seemed to just pack into her skin there were so many. For the first moment in a long time, Audrey Lone felt a spark of fear, but soon pushed it away and instead picked up her badassery._ I'm gonna need it_, she thought and straightened her shoulders, then crossed her arms sternly. She tried to think of something incredibly witty and awesome, but she couldn't. So she stayed silent.

The woman, who seemed to be the boss, stood up slowly, grinning. He faced her with a smirk that would kill a slaver dead, but barely fazed the Lone Wanderer. She was used to that look. Being faced with bloodthirsty mongrels on an everyday basis seemed to toughen you up for the really stupid ones. And yet even though she was used to it, the only thing it purposed in her was a strong hatred, and a heated anger that almost never surfaced - and when it did, you better be in a 100-mile radius. 'Cause she's gonna blow you up. _Literally_.

The boss ignored her angered glare. "I suppose you've figured out why your here by now."

No, she hadn't actually. Why hadn't she even thought about it? Surely she's got a fairly good idea of who it could be, didn't she? No... no, she didn't. She suddenly felt very stupid. Grunting, she shook her head quickly. "You're not raiders, that's for sure. And you're no random Wastelander. But no, I have no fucking clue who you are," she spat.

"Oh-ho-ho! So the brilliant Lone Wanderer doesn't know her own enemies, hmm? I wonder if we should tell her, boys?" A rumble from the group of thugs to her right and behind her spread throughout the room. "No? Really, boys, we should be nice. She's a guest after all, right?"

"Stop bloody toying with me," Aud seethed. "Just tell me who the hell you _are_."

The boss made what looked like a thoughtful expression. "Oh, alright, if you must know," she said in a very heavy, very fake English accent. Mocking her. Bitch. "But only because you can't seem to figure out for yourself, you stupid _Tunnel Snake_."

What. First thing that came crashing down on her was how she knew about her past affiliations. Then came a wave of anger, and then just dumbfound disbelief. "What," she deadpanned.

"Oh, you know what I'm talking about, you little garden snake. Your gang! They've been threatening us for weeks now, and we've been nice. We let them toy with us, but now more," she pulled a knife out of one of her many pockets and brought it up to Aud's jaw, tilting her head back. _She must know how cliché she's being, right?_ she thought.

She sighed, not threatened by the knife at all. This girl wasn't nearly as threatening as when she first saw her. She was like a child playing a little rough. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, bitch. I was a Tunnel Snake back when I was, like, 15. Besides, they are far from here. I don't know who _you_ were talking to."

She really looked angry now. "I know you're their leader! I could just kill you now and watch them scatter. Do you want me to do that?! _Do you_?!" She was screaming at her not, pressing the knife harder and harder into her neck.

_Alright, stop playing with her, Aud._ "No," she rasped, not being able to get much sound out with the knife at her throat.

She seemed to cool down considerable and stopped pressing so hard. "That's what I thought."

That brief moment when she let her guard down, lowering the knife slightly, moving her left foot back a little to readjust... That's when Aud struck. Her foot flung up in front of her, kicking the boss' arm and letting the knife soar through the air to land on the counter. She staggered back in sunrise at the blow, and subconsciously grabbed awhile of her arm, and the pain starting there. Before she had time to look up, or even react much, Aud had grabbed ahold of her shoulders and flung her backwards, knocking into two more goons. They all staggered back and she took the opportunity to turn her back to them, starting an immediate sprint through the still baffled crowd and into the corridors once again.

_I'm not a sissy_, she reassured herself. _I'm just lazy and took the easy way out_.


End file.
